Lawrence Goes to Japan - Day 1

So the day had finally arrived! We got to SFO and had a fairly uneventful run through airport security. We switched up our USD to JPY at the currency exchange place in the airport. The flight on Northwestern Airlines was also fairly uneventful. This is illustrated here:




Our plane.

The food was meh, but they did have an interesting entertainment system. It allowed on demand movies, games, and music. Our devices of course were not functioning correctly so they were useless.

We got to Narita Airport in Japan and quickly got through customs. They have a new procedure now that requires foreigners to give their two index fingerprints along with a photo. More information on that here. After getting through I found myself very amused with the very blue uniforms of the airport security staff.


I guess they didn't approve of me taking free photos of them.

To be honest the airport seemed exactly like SFO but a little more dirty. Not a good start imho. As soon as we got out of security I spied one of these bad boys:


Nestle, mmmmmm.

You might not be able to see it well in the picture, but under the drink bottles there is either a blue or red tag. Blue means cold drink and red means hot (or maybe slightly warm) drink. Warm and cold drinks in the same machine? WAT?

So now it was time to figure out how to get to the hotel. For some retarded reason I was sure I could look at some signs and just "figure" it out. Here is what the map looked like:



Not impossible to figure out, but kind of daunting at first glance. Luckily I knew one of the more useful phrases of the Japanese language. Eigo de Wakarimasu ka? Or do you understand English. :) So the helpful train ticket sales person was able to tell us which train to take, which was leaving in like 8 minutes.

So we wait for the train and get on. We hop on the last train and everything seems to be going well so far. Unfortunately, it turns out that the train tickets we bought had ASSIGNED SEATING. And our seats were in the very front of the train. So we basically had to drag our luggage through nine cars of the train while curious Japanese watched us. What really made it interesting was that in between the cars the "joints" of the train were moving around like crazy. It felt like we were on some crazy torture obstacle course!


Traveling through the gauntlet.


"Why didn't we take the limo?"

After traveling through hell we finally got to our seats. On the train they had a very convenient led display that showed us where we were in the train system.



So finally we got off the train and had to figure out where to go from Shibuya station. We actually should've just got off at Shinjuku but we are idiots. So we decided to look for a taxi. This was my chance to use some of my Japanese skill! I kindly asked this lady:



"Is there a taxi stop in this vicinity?" (in japanese of course) and she replied that she wasn't sure. Turns out it was literally 20 feet to our left. Ok maybe Japanese people aren't that smart after all? :P


Random bus we saw while waiting for a taxi.

The taxi ride was interesting. The taxi door opened automatically, which was cool. And the car was so small it barely fit any of our luggage. So we were smooshed. We gave the driver our address and he popped it in to the taxi's gps nav system! Very cool seeing taxi drivers using technology. After getting over the initial shock of being on the wrong side of the road we managed to get to our hotel.


Not the biggest room in the world.

We of course had to go somewhere on our first day there so time to explore our surrounding neighborhood!


Yes McDonald's is literally everywhere.



Everything is so colorful here.

It seems like Pachinko is SUPER popular here. There is a parlor around almost every corner in Shinjuku. Here is a quick vid of one of the back alleys:



So after checking stuff out it was time to eat. We checked out this small place in the alley and grabbed some Ramen, Gyoza and some Beers. I was able to successfully order food! But to be fair the Japanese make it pretty easy. Every menu has pictures of the main dishes so you basically could just point and order. But I used some JAPANESE. HONESTLY I DID.

So after dinner it was time to check out some stuff around here. We saw an arcade and stepped in.




Japanese Arcade right before closing.

We managed to get a few games of Initial D and Silent Hill in before they kicked us out. So now it was time to get some drinks. We wandered aimlessly for a bit admiring the sights.


Engrish FTW.

We ended up at a Japanese English Pub. The guiness there cost 9 bucks. OUCH. But it was all about the atmosphere. One thing I started noticing off the bat was that there was no tipping at all. I guess thats why the beer was 900 yen. heh

After wasting too much money we decided to stumble our way home.


Yes they have drunk a$$ foos in Japan too!


You like ladies?

Host bars are very popular here in Shinjuku. If you haven't heard of them you can learn more here. Not saying that we went to the female variety. I ain't saying NOTHING.


Pretty stuff in alleys.

Oh yeah, did i mention that it was a little nippy in Japan? Good thing we were able to purchase tasty warm beverages from vending machines which were on EVERY BLOCK. No really every block had a vending machine.


A delicious lemon drink.

Alleys in Japan seem incredibly safe. You don't feel like you are going to get jacked much at all. They also seem to really like bikes in Japan. They were EVERYWHERE. People would just lock the back wheel and leave them wherever. I guess no one steals jank cruiser bikes around Tokyo.


It's fun seeing English graffiti in Japan!


Wat?

Ok so that was Day 1. Stay tuned for Day 2!